PRIVATE VIEW | "Villa in the Jungle and Other Stories"
British-Israeli artist Dr. Gil Mualem-Doron will hold a private view for his exhibition Villa in the Jungle and Other Stories at P21 Gallery (21-27 Chalton St, NW1 1JD) on 2nd July 2025 at 6 pm. The exhibition will run from 1st to 5th July 2025, supported by contributions from the Britain Palestine Project (BPP).
Mualem-Doron reckons with the Israeli settler colonial project of genocide, land accumulation, and apartheid in strikingly absurdist, jarring and brutal imagery.
Villa in the Jungle sets the scene of a real estate agency selling houses on Gaza’s beach. The advertisements promoting the scenic dunes mask the genocide unfolding beneath the ruins. A film collage sells the Israeli settler experience, complete with sizable kitchens, garages, and outdoor spaces, with eerie and brooding banality.
Other installations, including a second film collage, explore the trauma of both the 7 October 2023 attacks as well as the genocide unfolding in Gaza. Mualem-Doron’s night-time photographs, in collaboration with internally displaced Palestinian communities, reflect on the history of the 1948 Nakba (or ‘Catastrophe’). Villa in the Jungle and Other Stories encompasses a vast reflection on these devastating times for Palestinians and Israelis.
Joe Gill, a journalist from Middle East Eye, says that “Gil Mualem-Doron's politically charged work triggers a cognitive jolt, visible on the visitors' faces. It shows how art can reach places that conventional protest cannot”.
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Ghazaleh Zogheib
Artist: Dr. Gil Mualem-Doron
Bio: Mualem-Doron’s work has been shown in places such as the Tate Modern, Turner Contemporary, and the South Bank Centre. He has had solo exhibitions at the People’s History Museum, Worthing Museum, P21 Gallery, and Rich Mix in the UK and in museums and galleries in Brazil, Germany, Israel/Palestine, Norway, and South Africa.